Hey! We definitely agree that not all solo players are casual players and appreciate all of the feedback here on the upcoming changes. It’s invaluable to informing our decisions making going forward. Getting powerful gear can be done solo, but players that play group activities (like Trials and Raid) will progress faster in this new system. That’s a behavior that I believe we want to support to reward those players that tackle that challenging content, but this doesn’t mean we want to leave solo players out in the cold. First, we’ve got some events coming in the future that will give extra opportunities for solo players to progress. Additionally, coming up with challenging and compelling reward sources for solo players (which, naturally, Raiders/Trials players will also participate in) is something I think we could do better with going forward and is something we’re actively thinking about. I think the progression system in Warmind feels a lot better than it has at any point in Destiny 2 so far, but I still think there’s untapped potential there to keep improving it in the future as well. Hopefully this has helped address some concerns, but I know we’re not at the perfect solo/group balance yet and we’re looking at ways to make that better going forward. I hate to sound like a broken record, but letting us know the parts you love and the parts you don’t love is super helpful as we work together to steer this ship towards future plans.

EDIT: Hey folks, just for some clarity (and because I don't want people to think I'm ignoring them) - I'm a rewards and progression guy by trade; I totally will pass along LFG/matchmaking feedback to people (and I know our community peeps are keeping an eye on this thread so they can do the same) but as folks might know from some of my other comments in this sub I don't like speaking to areas I don't work on directly. Last thing I want to do is make promises/statements for teams I don't work on, or provide you guys with bad information.

For me, it's all about matchmaking for the Nightfall and for Heroic Adventures. They're not so hard that people can fail it for their teammates and cause toxicity. Raids and Trials, I can understand, but the Nightfall really should just have matchmaking, especially now that there's exclusive loot.

Yeah, but I think you should always let your players to choose if they want to matchmake, for example in the division you can raid with friends or with randoms, it's on you and if you want to raid with randoms you know that sometimes they are a mess and sometimes they are awesome but you can choose, you can go solo if you want or just with a friend, but if you need people just need to press a button in game.

100% agree. There is absolutely no reason at all why the normal nightfall can't have matchmaking. Same for heroic adventures. Other endgame activities you could argue for and against, but the above 2 are clearly amenable to matchmaking.

This is my whole point. Trials is nothing more than the competitive playlist, but without the playlist (it’s locked to a particular game mode and map), just with the whole win/loss card added on.

It is just a way to gate certain rewards behind the ability to get a group together. Now that progression is tied to completion of this content, that gating needs to stop.

This gating directly contributed to low participation rates of endgame activities in D1, and I would argue that the dumbed down pile of blah that we’re currently slogging though was at least partially “justified” by “well nobody played it, so let’s dial back the hardcore content.”

The game needs tools to form groups built into the game.

Fuck spending 30-60 minutes getting a group together to play. My time is more valuable than that.

Amen. I would definitely come back if there was matchmaking. This was the same issue with D1, luckily my clan played Y1 and after ROI so I was able to do the endgame content, nobody had the patience for that in D2 so I'm solo (and not looking for a clan). Even built-in LFG would be great.

This new DLC and forthcoming updates look promising but I'm not spending a dime until this sub has ran through it.

Big issue is you need solo activities that people can log on and do at anytime that is in someway beneficial to them. The big reason for this is to keep people logged in and playing. If you have people logged in and playing it will attract other people to log on and play to and suddenly those people can group up together and do those group activities! If people only log in for groups then they'll log in... see nobody on and log off.

I really hope PvE matchmaking is implemented into the game. I haven't played a single game in the past 5-10 years that has required me to use a 3rd party just to find people to play with. It's very silly.

Thanks for commenting, Dan! I do hope that when bounties return that we will have higher tier bounties like what we had in Rise of Iron. Shaxxfall + Arcite Bounties, Weekly Strike Elite bounties, Iron Banner bounties, etc. Eventually I'd like to see strike specific loot return to Heroic Strikes as well (Nightfall can have exotic loot). They could be even lower tier power level rewards than our weekly milestones, but at least it would provide some form of progress throughout the week, should you put in the time to do so.

Sorry im not trying to be an ass but asking for clarification but wouldnt these systems not help "solo" players? Isn't the primary reason players are solo because they simply don't want to join a group to play. Sorry i definitely agree having LFG in game would really help people who are unaware of 3rd party apps but I wonder how much it would help. I guess im wondering what percent people are solo because: 1) Just wanna play solo 2)unaware of LFG apps 3) to busy with a life for group acitivites

I am definitely #1, generally I just want to play solo. That is why I really miss just being able to play the missions whenever I want. But I am also slightly #3, where sometimes I just do not want to commit a large chunk of time playing (and listening on the headset) with people I do not really know. Especially when I started getting to know some people in the clan I joined, then the content drought and problems with CoO meant that the clan disbanded because people stopped playing.

I definitely understand that some people just wanna turn Destiny on and shoot aliens in the face with music in the background. I also understand raids/trials are huge time commitments especially with current rewards. I just like the proposed fix for solo players is "Have LFG in game" because this doesn't help people in category #1 and #3.

Under your definition, "solo" players would never join matchmaking. Most "solo" players are solo because finding a group is inconvenient, time-consuming, and mentally exhausting. Losing 30 minutes every time you spin up the game because you need to track down two other people to play with is not fun. Making finding a group easy, obvious, and fast, will greatly increase the number of people who choose to form groups, by making it more palatable.

Primarily solo players want to participate in all content. Not handout rewards, actual in-game participation. There are no tools in the game to transition from solo to group play except matchmaking. And since many parts of the game require groups to actually participate or progress beyond owning sections, this drastically limits opportunities for solo players to even participate in the content we paid for.

Here's a hypothetical challenge: On PS4, without any of your existing friends on and without using an external website, how do you complete the Rat King quest?

Except that adding to fireteam doesn't turn on any communications. So you have to manually invite everyone, hope they have a mic, and if they don't you have to manually type out a message advising them of your goals. Then hope they don't immediately leave, or don't have to log off midway through.

It is a good point to differentiate between those who are solo because they do not like to play group based activities and those who are just primarily solo players who want to do group based activities as well. LFG and MM will not satisfy the former and there are a number of posts in here from that group.

The problem is that LFG sites and apps are not a good enough solution. It's a nuisance. Matchmaking opens up the contents for everyone. At the current moment, it's not the difficulty of the content that prevents solo player from attempting it, it's simply the lack of matchmaking.

Now you know someone who've completed raids in D1 and D2 and is not mixing up LFG and MM.

You don't need to discredit others like the way you did. Different solutions have different pros and cons. MM is the easiest way to open up access. Whether people can complete it or not, IMO is a different conversation.

It opens up access to start, not complete. And that is not a good thing to offer, that's very bad design.

You know it's needed to kick people or find replacements in your own time, you know that you need to ensure people communicate for the group to work.

MM will not have any of that. And then those micless, uncoordinated players will be on here asking to make the raid easier because the only raid they've had is a bad experience. They'll then be turned off LFG or a real raid completion and it will be too hard to persuade them otherwise. Instead they'll spread salt on here, making the sub worse and feedback noisy.

Vote to kick will be abused by trolls and saltminers if implemented. In the EU especially, there are language filters that present issues. There's the checkpoint system diluting players amongst various checkpoints instead of just knowing it's faster to start again in a competent LFG raid.

This will cause WAY more problems than it claims to solve. LFG with a leader is the minimum for content like raids. Why do you think letting the community have this is a good idea?

NFs are glorified strikes. MM is fine for those. MM for raids (and similarly trials) is bad for the health of the game.

There need to be solo things to do in game in order to keep people coming back online again and again. I genuinely think you need a progression system or two where you can grind for resources to get... something, I don't know what. There just needs to be stuff for solo's to get online for. If you go into the game without a friend right now, it's very empty. The game is headed in the right direction but without a reason for solos to get online there won't be nearly as many groups and clans being formed.

It still sounds like you guys fail to realize that solo players WANT to do the group activies AND get those rewards, but with the entire system designed against grouping up (or lacking any design) that is the problem.

You could have the best f'ing gun available in the game through Trials, but if that still means having to spend an hour on discord trying to find a group that then splits up after 3 matches played against the same streaming fireteam of 2400+ELO players vs 1100s that played together for the first time, thats not a game challenge or "git gud", its just bad design - or no design at all. 1) because there was no solo matchmaking in the game for it and 2) because there was no SBMM, and it means all these players will NOT be doing it, not to mention that having the best available weapon available to only the fireteams that every week play against randoms (and win), they'll just win even faster and ensuring that even fewer players attempt these activities.

You've had 4 years of thinking about adding QUEUES for every activity and ensuring that SOLO Queued players are evenly matched up against other players instead of fighting, as is often the case, RANDOMS vs Fireteams. Even George R R Martin managed to pull a book out of his a. in that time.

Stop Loving, Steering, Looking, Listening, THinking and start DOING.

Barring that, at least lay out out perfectly clear WHY such activities will NEVER get matchmaking.

It still sounds like you guys fail to realize that solo players WANT to do the group activies AND get those rewards, but with the entire system designed against grouping up (or lacking any design) that is the problem.

#notallsoloplayers

I prefer to play alone, more often than not. I'd like some solo content that challenges and engages me besides grinding my face against the nightfall solo, which is certainly balanced for three people.

If only to give me a reason to play while waiting for my friends to get a raid group together.

It’s really not hard to form your own teams. There are countless resources available. If you’re not willing to put in a little effort in building a team, I highly doubt you’re willing to put in the effort required to complete a raid or a trials run. Bungie app has LFG, Xbox has built in LFG, reddit has an LFG page, etc. it’s not that difficult. They all do the same thing an in game system would.

So your solution to the game not having inbuilt matchmaking is to get a XBOX, download a mobile phone app, or get a PC to go on reddit. The reason we have these external resources is because the game lacked them when it came out.. and still lacking them 4 years later... you are saying the game doesn't need this feature and shouldn't have it, but we should still be forced to use these external systems to do activities in the game... Really wtf? If anything, the fact that we HAVE to use these external resources should indicate there is a need for them in the damn game so why the hell are you against it!

But maybe they should go back to Everquest Velious raid style and have people post on an official forum to book a time slot before they can raid the Leviathan, after all, the tools are there, it just takes a little effort, and a lot of time from the players, surely that is how it should be.

Doubt all you fucking want, after doing the raids and nightfalls countless times I'm tired of spending time OUTSIDE the damn game to find players FOR the damn game. The features should be built in and they should be available from anywhere.

The reason we need to go to outside sources is because the vetting of players for an end game activity is absolutely necessary for a decent experience. If you are the type of player to go to an LFG website, you are also the type of player to be informed in how to do that activity and have the necessary equipment. If you eliminate the vetting process by making it straight matchmaking, raids instantly turn into a miserable experience.

Raids as they are now are not intended for players who are unwilling to go through the vetting process. This is especially true of D2 raids that are communication heavy.

The "other games" excuse does not work here either. There is nothing mechanically challenging about Warframe or Division content.

"But WoW has raid matchmaking!"

Yes, and they dumb down the raid enough to where the bottom of the barrel players are able to complete it if they use matchmaking. LFG difficulty raids in WoW are a difficulty setting below Easy/Normal and for good reason. There is no matchmaking for the three other difficulties.

The reason these systems don't exist in Destiny is because Bungie knows that working on a matchmaking system that delivers a subpar experience is a waste of development time and resources.

I think an intensive in-game LFG system would work far better than a matchmaking system. I also like what they were doing with Guided Games, but the lack of a healthy player base and a non-fleshed out system caused it to fail.

Sorry, but have you seen the bungie LFG? "Must have trials Aura and a KD of 3.0, will check before we launch." "Must have 10 Leviathan completions, will check before we launch." This shit doesn't help the Solos, it hurts it. I was excited for guided games, but clans don't have any incentive to help out, so the queues are dead.

I assume you joined some clan and tried to get games done through that?

Personally I only really used the Public Games service which is available to everybody. There were always randoms/regulars to play Raids during Y1-Y3. Nightfalls got more difficult to do from late Y2/early Y3 and a lot people moved to XBox's LFG service though.

If a Raid didn't get enough people they just used XBox LFG or their friends list to fill up.

No i think there would be more players if the game didnt suck. I can use D1 as proof that it wasnt that big a deal, because even in year 3 it had more players than D2 does now, and matchmaking was never an issue. Not saying they cant improve it, but i dont think its a priority.

It was surely easier to get people running an activity with LFG/the100. But people really underestimate the spontaneous factor. With matchmaking I would have just jumped into a NF in D1 when I felt like it. But doing it through LFG is just a bother I only do when I "need" to.

Why are you still making excuses for Bungie's laziness? Every other modern game has matchmaking or ways to find people to play with in the game. Bungie is the only one I know of that requires you to leave the fucking game to find people to play with. It's idiotic and people like you are hellbent on supporting these dumbass decisions.

I am not fucking making excuses, D2 is a fucking piece of shit, and bungie is a terrible developer for shoving this down peoples throats and just moving on to the next thing. Not everything can be #1 priority, that isnt how real life works.

Yes some say that but most people dont really care and will help out. Also if you cant find one MAKE YOUR OWN GROUP and then maybe you can actually play a raid. Its quite easy actually. You go on Destiny app click on RECRUITMENT then top right there should be an icon you press to create a post. Then select what system RAID and say somethin like LEVIATHAN FRESH click post, wait for people to respond and HOLY SHIT NOW YOU MAY ACTUALLY PLAY THE GAME!

Make your own LFG posts then, don't expect someone else to be looking for you. It took me about 10 minutes after making a post on the app (with a big central reminder that I had ZERO EXPERIENCE) to get my first group for Eater of Worlds.

I would say that having PVP and PVE chase items are def key, but that continuously enforcing raid/group requirement to PVE chase items is bad for business. The record books were one of the best things to chase that Destiny ever had, and for some reason just were dropped in D2. With those at least you had PVE options on how you unlocked the book levels. Solo players need time sinks too, just as the Claymore is for crucible players, and raid rewards are for groups, have something HARD and time consuming to earn for solo players.

As a solo player i'd just like to clarify that i'm all for the idea of activity specific rewards and i share the opinion that the best rewards should come from stuff like raids, nightfalls or trials. My main issue is that as a solo player its just fucking hard to find groups to do these things with. I work fulltime, i don't have the time to go to LFG sites and look for a group to do the raid with. Some days this is pretty quick, but other days it takes an hour just to find a raid group. I don't have that time in my life, and its holding me back from experiencing these activities.

I think that the main problem with Guided Games isn't the fact that the system itself can't work, but that the implementation of it was done poorly. It relies on clans willingly subjecting themselves to a potential poor experience with nothing to gain from it, so very few actually bother. This also leads to very long queue times.

If GG focused on clans first and gave them incentives, then good raid teams would be more inclined to actually use it, thus giving solo or duos an easier avenue into the raids and preferably Trials as well.

LFG also works (Coming from someone who's been using r/fireteams for the past four years and recently the DTG Discord for PC), but I think, if properly implemented, Guided Games has a higher ceiling in terms of giving players a more enjoyable experience. 4-5 people that regularly run the raid and know exactly what they're doing helping one or two solo players has a higher chance of going well than the average LFG team.

I totally agree that restricting it to clans really hurts the system. Even some of the best raid teams that I've been apart of that raid together regularly are rarely all in the same clan. Doing away with the aspect altogether would be best at this point.

Mic’s and ability to talk. If someone can not communicate, it will cause headaches in the Raid. I think bungie could detect if a Mic is attached, active and set to game chat (Sea of Thieves does this on PC and Xbox One, not sure if PS4 can). Then when you queue for raid matchmaking, choose your language.

Good to hear. As a solo player for the most part I don't expect to grind max light as quickly. I just like having an avenue to get there eventually. In D1 that was Iron Banner in PvP, and Archon's Forge in PvE for ghosts and artifacts.

I really enjoyed this last Iron Banner, and to be honest I had written D2 off completely. With what I've seen the past week or two I'm going to play through Warmind. I've noticed you folks also being more candid on public forums such as DTG and Twitter, and I appreciate that. I hope this kind of dialogue with the community evolves. It could get better, and I have faith now that you are all of the mindset to be a developer that truly gives the fan base good communication.

Halo was my first console game that sucked me into a world. One that became a campfire for my friend to gather around. After Halo 2, most of us faded through the 360 days. Destiny came along on the current gen and it has been the first game since Combat Evolved that became the campfire again. My friends all played, and we had that feeling again. D2 at launch lost that. I want to know you guys are still carrying the fire for us. I'm cautious, but open minded. Keep doing what you've been doing, and I'll pick my torch up to carry the fire with you.

Why not add a system that allows players to be rewarded for helping others? /r/DestinySherpa already has a fairly elaborate system surrounding their Sherpa Cards, and while it has suffered some due to the decreased population in D2, it was amazing in it's heyday.

Why can't we create a system that let's someone queue as a leader, and then work in a rating system/completion ratio. Then add milestones that reward exclusive cosmetics or other such things. I know this system can be abused. Yet games like League of Legend have successfully instituted their seasonal Honor system, which includes rewards.

Maybe even make it like the crucible ranks. Give us one rank for participating in matchmaking, and another for leading a group of new players.

Some people, like those over at Destiny Sherpa, are entirely altruistic, and the only reward they need is the pleasure of seeing someone clear a raid for the first time. Yet I so no reason not to provide some ingame incentive to these people.

It's not a perfect system, and with everything there will be people who try to abuse it, but I think the idea is a sound one.

My main concern with changing the power level progression isn't that it will be slower; I'm actually in favor of the power climb being more like D1. I think in less than a month most everyone will be max power anyway and the hand-wringing will have been for nothing.

My concern lies with the lack of in game options to find others to tackle endgame content with. I'm sure you guys have heard this a million times by now. Guided games was a good idea on paper but has been a dud in practice. I'm sure if the population was higher it would be used more but I think that it needs an overhaul.

In game LFG would solve an immense amount of the issues. As things stand now, the new system seems like its going to be a gross overcorrection the opposite direction from launch. It will just end up punishing those no longer interested in playing the secondary outside LFG game.

We are almost 4 years in, the challenge should be the content, not the challenge finding a group for the content.

Why did you (Bungie) get rid of the games locked team feature? Meaning. After you and the team beat the strike. You stayed together for the next one. If one or both left, you immediately got a new team(mate). Why was this ditched? u/danielout

Solo players really only have a few activities: patrol, meditations, public events, casual crucible, strikes (sort of), adventures, lost sectors, and that's pretty much it. Assuming similar overall play times, we can infer that our hardcore solo player has more time, proportionately, than a hardcore group player to dedicate to those activities. To that end, we can tack some rewards on to a long term investment into those activities. We've already got something like that coming in S3 with the addition of rank locked vendor rewards, the players haven't tried it out yet so we'll see how it lands on live, but I think that's a good step.

The rub here is of course level of reward to time invested, as well as time required. I really liked the idea of the ornaments in S2, but I got all but one vanguard emblem done in a week, and the last one only took longer because I had to wait for more nightfall milestones. They were pretty easy, and as much as I enjoyed having them... I was soon out of things to do again. Bottlenecking our progress can drag it out, but I don't know if that's the right choice. I can't speak for everyone, but I'd rather be asked to work than asked to wait. Bottlenecked rewards, like say the flashpoint, could reward bursts of progress that can be earned in smaller portions by grinding activities.

Heroic adventures are also a great idea I'd like to see more of, and could be part of the solo player activity loop. The infinite forge touched on a lot of these ideas, but it also suffered from having a very distinct end point. You get every gun, and then you're done with it forever, and not like with NPCs and getting everything you want, it just stops being a thing that exists in your world entirely. Something like the infinite forge, that requires participating in a variety of activities, but without the distinct end point, could help fill this void.

Also, somewhat surprising, Cayde is an underutilized character in the end game. Making him the solo progression NPC could give him something to do. Ditto for Ikora, I don't talk to her ever.

I think the grind for the forge weapons in CoO was a good example of a great way to grind for stuff, but the rewards at the end need to be better. Most of the weapons just weren't very good compared to what we already had or could get without the grind.

Totally fair that LFG/matchmaking is not your area and you don’t want to be on Reddit speaking for others. I’m totally cool with that.

So on the note of rewards and progression, gating it behind difficult content is completely fine, but gating it behind the ability to have a pre-made fireteam is arbitrary and, frankly bullshit.

Now, I’m sure you know who the LFG/matchmaking people are, and it is beyond time for them to come before the community and speak to this.

Not to tell us why we’re wrong...to tell us what Bungie is planning to do about it.

We need to hear from the source on this. /u/cozmo23 and /u/dmg04 are nice guys and all, but “we hear you” and “we’ll pass this along” are starting to ring really fucking hollow after listening to it over and over for so long with very little in the way of tangible results.

I remember back in D1 when Deej went on a stream and in all his smarmy douchiness, condescendingly informed us that “finding a group is part of the challenge.”

That is bullshit. Pure and utter bullshit. If you’re running a multiplayer online game in 2018, LFG is a basic feature.

The time for “keeping an eye on this” is past. You’ve had 4 years to keep an eye on it. Time for some action.

Agree. I'd just make it locked out till your at the recommended power level. Just because I'd be pissed if I was MM and had to carry some random who thought they were better then they were and doing next to no damage/getting killed all the time. Been there and even with friends it's frustrating enough.

Solo player here, we definitely appreciate your responses too, especially from the devs like yourself, it really helps to hear where you guys stand and what your goals are. I agree with the other replies about adding matchmaking in activities like nightfall and even trials. I know that’s not your area, but appreciate you passing the word on. :)

Additionally, coming up with challenging and compelling reward sources for solo players (which, naturally, Raiders/Trials players will also participate in) is something I think we could do better with going forward and is something we’re actively thinking about.

What I would like would be “adaptive” nightfalls. If you do the nf with 3 people, it’s the usual difficulty. If you do it with 2, it’s a little easier. And if you start a nf solo, even a little more easy. I am yet to finish my first solo nightfall, but I’m getting closer. Certain situations are made for three players and extremely hard for solos. But if those were toned down a bit for solos, I would be gladly grind the nf over and over.

House of Wolves was the best time, because with the "light level" issue out of the way you could just go and experiment different loadouts. Many people attributed the ease of reaching max power to the reason why other people won't log in and become slave to the LFG circuit I mean, play the game :D, but there were other reasons: weapons were going to become obsolete come september (you announced that far too early), neither trials nor prison of elders were 6v6 activities and for most people the travel with D1 Y1 just felt complete, short of doing all the tasks on the Y1 Triumph list.

For a Solo Player, launch Taken King was bad because if you skipped the rush to do easy mode raid you had no recourse for being called to enter hard mode raid at all. Legendary Marks were actually harder to come across than Crucible and Vanguard Marks if you did not want to shard weapons (as an aside, sharding duplicate weapons for marks is a bad mechanic because you don't know if you want to keep the infusion fuel, the marks or the different roll... and D2 with Mods and masterworks did not solve the last part). Iron Banner with the bad drops did not help. Oh yes, never forget the day you guys introduced Festival of the Lost you put time-limited candies to get more glimmer from enemeies, while you nerfed glimmer payouts to fuck up with people loading up the first Mars mission with all the yellow cabals. For what? So that people could not buy 200 copies of the awoken ship and fill up their inventories with that? Never mind that the glimmer nerf was taken completely and brought un-nerfed to D2.

Taken Spring progression was the best compromise between Glorious House of Wolves and Stingy Taken King: no hurry to level up but you could if you wished to, there was Prison of Elders as a "secondary nightfall". And Iron Banner helped you to progress. And completing bounties was an incentive to play PvP better even if you were put in a hyper-long streak of shitty teams.

I am out of the loop so I might be wrong on the following: it would even be better if now Iron Banner was actually light-enabled but in return dropped high light stuff, like during Taken Spring (the Rise of Iron Iron Banner setup was terrible: no bounties therefore no mechanism if you were put in bad teams and you kept getting bronze medallions.)

I don't really understand what your team thought when everyone of your team sat in front of the blackboard and decided to scrap all of it and instead say "ok lol, let's get ALL THE PEOPLE in clans, and let's make them receive packages from the enjoyment that THE GLORIOUS RAIDING PEOPLE had already".

I want to kill tanks in patrol and get a package from it, I don't want to be reminded that I have work and life obligations while other people have fun from a piece of "entertainment software". And to say on top of it "hey, let's make it so that picking up resources on the planet does does not make glimmer or tokens to pop up". For what reason again?

Having more active taksks which are not stupid (so you need to spell out "We won't give these out, you must work for your +1 weapon") and are not glorified fetch quests like faction packages, and require you to actively play and complete them is actually a good idea.

I have other ideas but luckily for you I have no time to explain them now. I will just wait to go and play Warmind and decide if that saves or completely kills my interest to the franchise.

On the other hand listening that the team is interested in new solo player edngame activities is a good news.

Solo players have issues across the board in every facet of the game. With the upcoming changes to the Competitive playlist and the additions of ranks, it seems fit to add a playlist to satisfy the need to cater to the large amount of players who choose not to play in a fire team. But rather than take away from the team-focused modes, why not just add Competitive Rumble, maybe even with objective based modes within, such as Oddball and King of the Hill?

Matchmaking system works in many other games. Let the player choose if they wanna find the groups or use pugs to do the content. I know its almost impossible to beat a raid in Destiny with pugs due to the mechanics and coordination, but let the player choose how they want to play.

This is exactly why I’m not leveling before the change. I need to see the system/progression within contextual outcomes and with clarity in relation to the wild and to others. I may love it, but I don’t want to get trapped inside my own subjective reality time loop.

Accessibility is key to the solo player and encourages them to come out of their shells usually. It’s also situational and circumstantial for everyone so not always but often, maybe, and even sometimes. Say that 5 times fast...

I guess I'm late here but I wanted to thank you for writing this up. It means a lot to us to see Bungie responding to our discussions and thinking about what we have to say. So, thank you. And please extend that to whoever you can.

I think that you don't have to pass the "idea" of matchmaking to Bungie (or whoever is responsible for this) - they already know. For some reason, this has been a debate since D1 freaking launch, and we are not getting it still. By this point it is clear that Bungie outright doesn't WANT matchmaking in the game. I think there were some arguments against it, but in the end, all arguments have been simply defunct seeing how LFG systems are working.

Alright, I guess I'll add my opinions to the pool. I am a working professional and a solo player with no friends who play the game. I sink 5-10 hours per week into Destiny, which certainly isn't the most, but I used to sink 20-30 hours per week into Destiny 1.

The simple skill tree isn't fun - there's nothing to build, no special movement, and you have it all figured out in about five minutes.

The gear system makes it so you aren't searching for any specific pieces of gear. It often doesn't feel worthwhile to even look at the gear I've received from playing.

D2 PVP doesn't require you to pick your battles. There were many times in D1 when it was more productive to run because you couldn't effectively engage at the given distance. Using Jade Rabbit in close quarters or Dealbreaker at range wasn't going to work for you.

As a result of the above, there are play styles I loved in D1 (Supporting teammates from long distances with Jade Rabbit?) which are no longer playable.

Because you don't have to choose your battles, it's generally more productive to jump into the first battle you can find, within reason, so it encourages nontactical play.

It's usually not possible to run in D2. Maps are flat, cover is minimal. Think about Twilight Gap - this was a map with two major levels on top of one another and several access points between them. You could break line of sight and get away or flank from above. The lack of worthwhile special movement also contributes to this.

Along the same lines, there are also no sniping lanes or "killboxes" which makes it so you don't have to have any map awareness at all while you're moving about the map.

I for one love the changes, if there is an easy way to get max level solo then no one will ever Do the raids or trials. Just look at the start of D2 people were not farming the raids they were farming public events because it was easier and you could do it solo. You need to incentivize grouping and this is a great way to do it. and if you are not doing the raid then you don't need max level so get over it.

Great response. Also glad to see a post like this isn’t going to chnage the plans moving forward. I think the changes are exactly what the game needs right now. Until we get weapon randomization and other hopeful changes to loot in d2, I feel like a grind for max level is a good step to keeping us engaged for longer.

But the gear should not be the point of the endgame. Having engaging challenges and gameplay should. Currently that does not exist for a solo player in any way that feels remotely intended.

Additionally, coming up with challenging and compelling reward sources for solo players (which, naturally, Raiders/Trials players will also participate in) is something I think we could do better with going forward and is something we’re actively thinking about.

If you want to have an example of an endgame for a solo player with challenging content, and a gear grind, look at the new God of War, and the Niflheim/Muspelheim/Valkyrie endgame that exists there. It's not infinite, but it provides challenges to surmount, and goals to reach (and provides the opportunity to earn loot that helps you in this journey).

Milestones as a primary source of content for solo players is not engaging. With milestones as they currently are, you are playing a checklist, not a game.

The only fix to this is OPTIONAL match making. It sure will be a shit show for those that make the choice to go with it but bungie needs to keep thier resolve about complaints around it. If you choose option match making you are choosing to play with the following issues: no mic, afk, screaming kids, barking dogs, teams consisting of people only speaking one of the following put together: English, French, Korean, Mandarin, patwa, Swahili. Yes it will be a mess but there are people willing to wade through that mess to complete an activity.

And without shooting the messenger (who was kind enough to respond here) - it's makes little sense right now to have so much content locked behind a lack of in game match-making - and rather than embrace the issue - Bungie seem to be doing quite the opposite. I don't think many solo players expect or want high end items to be available to all - this was never the case in D1 either. But we do expect to be able to play content and grind towards max light without deliberate hindrance to make raiding and Trials more attractive. It's a square peg - round hole situation.

Why take away the ability to power up in Iron Banner?

Why not include match-making for Nightfall?

Where is the Heroic - Strike loot?

Why disable Exotic engram power levelling?

All of these things have made it a toxic environment for solo players and players who do not Fireteam.

The largest part of your player base. It's blinkered and pretty unfathomable.

The biggest negative example I have in the warmind dlc is "Redix's Claymore" from attaining glory rank in Comp. We all know it's going to be next to impossible for solo players to achieve this regardless of their skill when mostly the comp playlist is going to be full of stacked teams. Why can't solo players have an alternative route that takes a lot longer? Like you have to get a really high "kill count" which will take a solo player several weeks longer to get it but still attainable within season 3?

Exactly- and now that they've nerfed the Raid and Clan engrams (and had an obnoxious streamer reveal that instead of telling us themselves- thanks, Bungie) solo players are going to be at even more of a disadvantage in the Crucible.

Here's a suggestion- make a plain Jane version of the Raid and Trials weapons that have different names but the exact same perks sets and then put them behind a quest like the Mercury Forge so that only a set amount can be obtained each week. Raid/Trials players still have their prestigious awards but the rest of us still have a level playing field in the Crucible.

Can you help get rid of the people posting on YOUR LFG looking for people with 10 raid completions. This is why I no longer use it, I dont have the time to do it 10 times. Playing solo LFG forums like your HELPS, but not when its full of toxic idiots who have too high of standards.

Dan, my man...we need you guys to listen to us and not just the people you invite for a summit. Some of the things you guys spent thousands of dollars to fly people out and listen to their feedback felt like a slap in the face to us that have been online the official forums providing feedback and seeing nothing done for 3 years now. Then a summit happens and 'oh we talked about this, it was great' like wtf...

Please pass along the STRONG feedback. Almost all of the folks at your summit were folks that play with groups of people every day. Most of them do it for a living. So I'm sure they will not have provided this feedback very well, if at all. Meanwhile, most of the folks that support the game are solo players. Most of us are TOTALLY OKAY with challenging content. Most of us are TOTALLY OKAY with matchmaking in challenging content, too. We WANT TO GRIND for levels and powerful gear. We don't want to hit arbitrary weekly caps and have to choose between playing the way we want to play (solo) and leveling up. That's just an awful choice to put on us. Let us grind! Solo FTW!

Now, I never played Destiny 1 so I'm not sure if anything like this existed in any form or fashion. Anyways, have you considered the idea of a multi-step custom built weapon similar to how FFXIV have their relic weapon system? They are massive grinds for uniquely skinned weapons and somewhat customized stats/abilities. It could be built around a primarily solo grind using different activities that are a part of the current game like Lost Sectors, Public Events, Patrols, Adventures, & Strikes.

Please for the love of god don’t listen to these people. In game matchmaking is a needed addition and a lfg system is as well, but please the proposed system is looking good. Don’t falter to these people now or we’ll end up in the same mess that we started this game with. The best equipment and the highest light all should be reserved for those that want to do the high end team based not people that choose not to and then expect to be rewarded equally. It will make progression meaningless and hollow like it was when the game started. Please look at the other post and comment there as well. There are two sides to this argument and we already know how this one works, just look at how the game started and how awful it is.

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